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Keith

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Choosing the Right Blade.

A knife is not meant to be used for splitting wood, knives have specific uses. If you have heavier work to do then you carry a tomahawk or belt axe.

The hunting knife.
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A hunting knife needs to have a blade of at least 6 inches. It should be made with the blade & tang in one piece. Full tang or half tang. This knife is used to skin & butcher game. It may also be needed for dispatching game & for defence. A hunting knife should never be thrown for sport at a hard surface, but it can be thrown in a defence situation if only to distract the attacker for long enough for you to gain cover; reach your attacker before they can shoot at you, or to facilitate your escape. Other than this you should keep this knife with you at all times.

The legging knife.
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A second back-up knife may be carried to aid in skinning & butchering. This is to save time if your hunting knife should become dulled whilst dressing game. It is not wise to stay in one place for too long in case the sound of your shot has attracted unwanted guests. The blade length is not important so long as it is long enough to skin & butcher. Again the blade & tang need to be one piece, not joined. It is possible that this blade may be needed for defence, so it should be kept easily accessible. Sometimes these were historically carried by hanging the sheath from a leather thong around the neck & were known as neck knives.

The clasp knife or jack knife.
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The clasp knife is used for camp chores, making a pot hook, making traps & trap triggers, etc.

The tomahawk or belt axe.
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The tomahawk can be used for: constructing a shelter, making & hammering in wooden stakes, cutting bush poles, trap making, dismembering large game, self defence, throwing at an enemy or if needed thrown to down game. It can also be thrown for recreation/target practice. I have never found it necessary to use my tomahawk for cutting firewood, there is usually plenty of wood to be found on the forest floor, & large pieces can be broken over a log or a rock. The axe blade can also be use for fleshing animal skins. The tomahawk head can be removed for this purpose if it has a tapered oval or round eye.

The half-axe.
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The half-axe is carried by some woodsmen to facilitate heavier construction work. It is not as large or as heavy as a full size felling axe, but larger than a tomahawk & so can be tied to the knapsack without being cumbersome.

Specialty blades.
Daggers & killing knives.
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This last one is actually a plug bayonet that I made to fit the muzzle of my .62 calibre fusil.
 

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This, as ever, is a thorny issue. What is the right blade to carry? I would argue that a fixed blade "bushcraft style" knife would be most useful. But in a prepping situation and for portability and discretion I would think a folding blade might have the best all round use - something like an Otter Mercator - slim light, will slide inside a boot if needs be, but also robust and with a simple repairable mechanism.

http://www.moonrakerknives.co.uk/mercator.html
 
I don't think its a case of just one knife, I would carry a machete for clearing scrub , a hatchet for log splitting, a sheath knife for general work and a thin blade for skinning, of course that's why I ended up with a collection of knives many more than I would ever need in the event.
I carry a lock knife as part of my EDC, more discreet for normal times.
 
What you describe as a half axe I would describe as a forest axe. I like Swedish pattern bearded axes to keep the weight down. They usually have a strait helve and can be used as either two handed axe or hatchet. My knives tend to be simple clipper type blades made of the HCS Mora steel (usually a composite of HCS folded around a medium carbon steel) either plastic or wooden handles as long as they're full tang. I carry a blue slipsrone and a piece of wet n dry taped to Perspex with double sided tape.
I do have some knives that have specific uses such as butchering meat, carving wood or grafting fruit trees etc.
As for folding knives I like the Swiss Army knife as my every day carry in the UK. It's good and perfectly legal to carry.
 
What you describe as a half axe I would describe as a forest axe. I like Swedish pattern bearded axes to keep the weight down. They usually have a strait helve and can be used as either two handed axe or hatchet. My knives tend to be simple clipper type blades made of the HCS Mora steel (usually a composite of HCS folded around a medium carbon steel) either plastic or wooden handles as long as they're full tang. I carry a blue slipsrone and a piece of wet n dry taped to Perspex with double sided tape.
I do have some knives that have specific uses such as butchering meat, carving wood or grafting fruit trees etc.
As for folding knives I like the Swiss Army knife as my every day carry in the UK. It's good and perfectly legal to carry.
Illegal to carry pocket knives here!
Keith.
 
Any locking mechanism is also illegal for a folding knife with any length of blade. :poo::poo::poo:
yes that too. its a bit of a bummer when I was brought up every boy and every adult male had a pocket knife.
talk about using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
 
As a kid I was running around the woods with a scout sheath knife and a .22 air rifle.....different times:sad:
 
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